NA meeting: Deliberations on Budget for FY 2025-26 on party line conclude

Kathmandu, June 6: Nepali Congress lawmaker Jit Jung Basnet has pointed out the need of encouraging civil servants to promote good governance by controlling corruption.     

Participating in the discussion on the annual estimate of revenue and expenditure for coming fiscal year 2025/26 in today's meeting of the National Assembly (NA), he expressed the view that salary of the civil servants should be made double keeping the increasing price hike in mind.     

"It is necessary to increase the salary of civil servants by double or threefold to control corruption as the current salary is not enough for them to run their family", he argued.     

Stating that the budget brought by the government for coming fiscal year is balanced, Basnet said a strong mechanism is must for its effective implementation.     

He expressed the view that an alternative route to Narayangadh-Muglin road was necessary to end the vehicular movement obstruction due to flood and landslide.     

Similarly, Jayanti Devi Rai of CPN (Unified Socialist) claimed that the budget has failed to address the people's expectation.     

Saying the government did not allocate sufficient amount of budget for the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizen, she mentioned that the country could not be self-reliant until the priority is given to agriculture.     

Likewise, Anjana Shakya of the CPN (UML) stressed the need of introducing attractive programme in agriculture targeting the youths as sustainable economic development was not possible without increasing production and productivity.     

She added that more than 500 start-up companies have been registered in Nepal and the number of start-up companies would reach to 10,000 and more than 100 unicorn companies by 2030, sharing that more than 50,000 employments would be generated from this.     

Budget failed to bring hope and enthusiasm: opposition party lawmakers     

Opposition party lawmakerss have commented that the budget is not focused on solving the country's current problems while the ruling party lawmakers defended it.     

Taking part in a general discussion on the annual estimates of revenue and expenditure for the fiscal year 2025/26, the opposition party MPs stated that the budget has not taken the right direction.     

CPN (Unified Socialist)'s Ghanashyam Rijal and Sabitri Malla; CPN (Maoist Centre)'s Taraman Swanr, Suresh Kumar Ale Magar, Manarupa Sharma and Gopi Bahadur Sarki Achhami were the lawmakers from the opposition parties airing their views on the budget in today's meeting.     

Similarly, Nepali Congress lawmakers Krishna Prasad Poudel and Krishna Bahadur Rokaya, and CPN (UML) lawmakers Anjan Shakya and Bhagawati Neupane took part in the deliberations on the budget in today's meeting.     

In the meeting, the discussions on party-basis on the annual estimation of revenue and expenditure for the upcoming fiscal year 2025/26 have concluded in the National Assembly today.     

The next meeting of the National Assembly will be held on June 9th at 1:15pm.(RSS)